Monday 29 February 2016

"The little things"

I think I've written before about how my father, an ardent Welshman, would take it as a personal affront if daffodils didn't flower in the garden on March 1st, St. David's Day. Well, this year, with so mild a winter, they came so early I was really worried that they'd all be over long before the due date, but I found a patch this morning just about to burst into flower - I'm sure they'll do the decent thing and open tomorrow!


St. David's last words to his followers were reputedly about doing the little things they'd seen and heard him do - the little things being the important ones. I always think that the same applies to writing - it's attention to the little things, the details, that really make the difference. At the moment I'm reading "Four Seasons In Rome" by Antony Doerr and it's his attention to the minutiae of everyday life that makes his writing so fascinating - the way he brings every paving stone, every shop window passed so clearly into focus, you feel that you're walking down the street with him as he pushes his twin sons along in their stroller. I recently read "The Memory Wall", a volume of his short fiction and found the same there - although the stories embraced a variety of locations (South Africa, China, Eastern Europe) in each the sense of place was so strong because of his close attention to the smallest detail. A great talent.

Tuesday 23 February 2016

A welcome guest

My friend and Picaresque colleague Judith van Dijkhuizen was the winner of the poetry section of the Gloucestershire Writers Network competition at the Cheltenham Literature Festival last year. She's blessed with musical as well as poetic talent and has entertained us at New Bohemians in the past; I'm delighted that she has agreed to guest on my blog this month. 

CITY TREES

As you hurry past the high-rise flats,
and the dum-dum-dum thuds from car windows –

remember the forest
where you heard the snow melt.

And as you pass the city trees,
spaced evenly in square-cut holes,

remember that their roots are spreading, spreading,
beneath the tarmac,
a hidden forest floor.

Judith van Dijkhuizen




As a child in post-war London, I was always on the lookout for nature. I loved the tough wild plants that grew under hedges, all leaves and wiry stems with a few tiny, star-like flowers. I spent hours poring over books on birds and flowers, and went searching for them – successfully – on overgrown bomb-sites.
The idea for this poem came to me when I was walking along the London Road in Cheltenham, past the traffic and rectangular flowerbeds. I looked at the giant London plane trees and thought about the scene in two distinct ways. Trees planted and controlled in the town – or the town a guest of nature, held and tolerated by the trees.



Sunday 21 February 2016

Circles and Circuses

Lately I've been working on a series of poems about Celtic myths and legends, especially those originating in Wales. On Friday I was delighted to come across the wooden carvings in the "Circle of Legends" at Tintern Station on the banks of the Wye, each one with its own wonderful story to tell. My imagination was particularly fired by the figure of Tewdrig, a king of Gwent in the post-Roman period.

Tewdrig, a devout and holy man, abdicated in favour of his son Meurig and retired to live a hermit's life at Tintern. But, when the kingdom was threatened by Saxon invaders, he was recalled to lead his son's army into battle. Victorious but mortally wounded in the fight, Tewdrig was carried in a carriage pulled by two stags on his final journey towards the place he had requested for his burial, Ynys Echni (the island of Flat Holm). Wherever the stags halted, fountains gushed from the earth. Just as they approached Mathern, an inlet on the coast, Tewdrig died. There his son built a church and buried his father's body. For defending a Christian kingdom against pagan invaders, Tewdrig was declared a martyr and a saint and his feast day is celebrated on April 1st.

Tewdrig apTeithfallt

In the bent figure of Tewdrig, in the lines of his face in the carving, you can feel the weight of the responsibility he felt for defending his realm, an old man called upon to make a great sacrifice for his people. Tremendous potential there for some poetic exploration!

Then a rather different tack on Saturday; I was at a short workshop run by Anna Saunders on confessional poetry - some brief but interesting insights into the work of poets such as Charles Bukowski, Sharon Olds and of course Sylvia Plath. Followed by the challenge of an exercise making fictional material appear authentically autobiographical!

"Here I am down on the ground,
you're in the air" -
I played it time and again,
my life panning out in song.

You flew athletic, graceful, amazing,
high above gasps of delight
from your adoring audience,
effortlessly acrobatic on that sparkling trapeze;

I dreamed of taking on tour
a tandem performance
as I swept sawdust from the floor
and they sent in the clowns.

(Copyright Gill Garrett 2016)





Friday 12 February 2016

Stories in stones

Since childhood I have been fascinated by museums, large ones, small ones, famous ones, struggling local ones. They have always seemed to me to be repositories of stories - the stories of people's lives from centuries or millenia ago, which we can somehow still access through the artefacts they left behind. Much of it must be conjecture of course, but that's what I enjoy, the chance to let my imagination run riot to recreate a life lived long ago, perhaps in a far flung part of the world. And that then leads on to the opportunity to put that life on paper, as a story or a poem.

I'm delighted to have been asked to read at the Cheltenham Poetry Festival this year, at an event in the Wilson Art Gallery and Museum with the American poet Carrie Etter and my friend and Picaresque colleague Penny Howarth. It will be on Saturday May 14th at 8.00pm and we'll be reading poems inspired by the Wilson's permanent collection. Some of the ones I shall read were written last year and a couple appeared in "Poetry Amongst The Paintings", our Picaresque pamphlet launched in December, but I'm still working on several more.

Two other pieces of work still underway - a poem and a short story - had their origins in a visit last summer to the museum in Stroud. Two lives I'm reconstructing are of young girls from the area who lived hundreds of years apart. The first was a girl named Julia Ingenelli; all we know of her is what is recorded on her tombstone -

To the spirits of the departed
Julia Ingenilla
who lived 20 years, 5 months
and 29 days

The tombstone was found in Horsley, a village not far from Stroud, presumably where this well connected young Italian woman lived some time between 100 and 200AD. Who had those words inscribed? Someone who knew the intimate details of her life, a grieving father perhaps? Fertile ground there for pursuing.

The second girl's name was Elsie Burford, a scholar in Stroud almost a hundred years ago. Her nature studies drawing book is on display in a cabinet in the reconstructed school room at the museum, opened at a page headed "April 19th 1922". Where was she when she captured these impressions of dragonflies? What was the weather like, how was she dressed, who was she with? What became of her subsequently? The pen picture I can draw from the fragments of information I have may bear little relation to the reality of her life but hopefully will contain just a sliver of the essence of it.


Thursday 4 February 2016

Water, woods and words

Place makes such a difference to our feelings, our energy, our creativity. Last Friday evening's New Bohemians workshop at deepspace (I always want to give it a capital letter but it doesn't have one!) in Charlton Kings made me really conscious of that. It's a venue that really lends itself to that sort of activity - you just can't fail to be inspired there. Especially by the dedication of Su Billington who runs it; keeping such a venue going with all the funding problems inherent in that sort of project must be incredibly wearing but her enthusiasm never fails.

deepspace exhibits

Then on Saturday morning we were at the Suffolk Anthology in Cheltenham for Anna Saunders workshop on prose poetry. Another place which inspires and energizes - it's a really lovely, comparatively new, bookshop and the owner, Helen, is so welcoming. Sitting in the basement surrounded by poetry books definitely had the effect of prompting the creative spirit in the fifteen of us who were there. And the coffee and cakes on offer were an inspiration too!

But this morning I certainly felt that I was in the company of the greats. I was walking in the Wye Valley and waxing lyrical to my partner about the beauty of the woodland we were in and the river glinting in the sunlight below us; suddenly we came across a quite isolated cottage with the plaque below embedded in the wall. If Wordsworth was so inspired by this view, how could I fail to be?! Straight home to put pen to paper ...

How oft in spirit have I turned to thee
O Sylvan Wye
Thou wanderer through the woods
How often has my spirit turned to thee!

Wordsworth